Role

Dr Petra Molthan-Hill PhD, MBA, MDiv, PFHEA has lead the Green Academy at Nottingham Trent University since 2013, with the aim to include ESD related curricular and extra-curricular initiatives into the whole university, for example the internal online course offered to all 28.000 student at NTU: ‘Sustainability in Practice Certificate’ (2500 completed to date, shortlisted Green Gown Award 2014, practical challenge day shortlisted in the Green Gown Awards 2017, now three topics on offer: Food, Energy and Clothing).

Petra co-created NTU’s ‘Future Thinking’ Framework in 2016, which includes reference to the Global Sustainable Development Goals and is being rolled out within an institutional Curriculum Refresh. She won ‘The Guardian University Award 2015 for Business Partnership’ (Greenhouse Gas Management Project) together with NetPositive Ltd and the Sustainability Professional Award in the Green Gown Awards 2016.

Petra is also Associate Professor of Sustainable Management and Education for Sustainable Development at Nottingham Business School and was as NBS Sustainability Co-ordinator responsible for embedding sustainability and business ethics into the curriculum of the business school. Petra is the Co-Chair of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) working group on climate change and environment. She is the editor of 'The Business Student's Guide to Sustainable Management' offering seminars and other teaching material in how to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in accounting, marketing, HR and other subjects in management/business studies but also ideas on how to teach system thinking, corporate peace-making and the crowd-sourcing of sustainable solutions, which would be of interest to lecturers/students from other disciplines; the second edition is now part of the PRME book series and published by Routlegde. Petra is also the Academic Lead for PRME in Nottingham Business School, the Chair of the TILT group ‘Education for Sustainable Futures’ and the Lead for the Pedagogical Research of the Responsible and Sustainable Business Lab.

Recently, Petra reconceptualised the Sustainable Development Assesment Tool (SDAT) of NHS England funded by, and accountable to, NHS England and Public Health England to work across the NHS, public health and social care system together with Dr Michael Hewitt from NBS and the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU).

Currently, Petra is working on a research project about Carbon Literacy in Coronation Street.

Career overview

After a ‘Master in Divinity’ (‘Erstes und Zweites Theologisches Examen’) and running a company for four years in Germany, Petra did an MBA at Manchester Business School, UK, from 1999-2001. While doing her PhD at NTU (scholarship), she was a Visiting Lecturer at Manchester Business School from 2001-2004 teaching an elective in business ethics to MBAs. In 2004 she started as Senior Lecturer in NTU.

Research areas

In her PhD Petra focused on cross-cultural comparisons between managers in the UK and Germany and their sense-making of environmental issues, which led to two journal papers about moral muteness and the framing of the business case in both countries. Since then Petra’s research focus has shifted to Education for Sustainable Development. She also has a strong interest in how HEIs and other organisations integrate sustainability into their core activities. Petra is now focusing in her research on climate change education and carbon literacy.

External activity

Petra is the Co-Chair of the PRME Working Group on Climate Change and Environment with the aim to share innovative curricular and extra-curricular teaching material worldwide, to help other universities to develop policies and strategies in how to integrate climate change and other environmental issues into operation and curriculum and to encourage partnerships with companies in addressing these issues in innovative projects.